Category Archives: recipes

That Awesome Rainy Day

21 Monday Aug 2023

Posted by in agriculture, alternative lifestyles, family farm, farm, food, food production, gardening, gardens, health, health and wellness, homesteading, horticulture, lifestyle, recipes, the sustainability plan for food

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Hail Brave Hearts

It’s a stormy day with the thunder crackling.  Lightning lights up the sky and the torrents of rain fall heavily.  Lucky us.  The rain with it’s magical nutrition, watering all of the earth.   A day when we can pass on watering the outdoor flowers and lawn and let nature take control and provide the much needed moisture.  Fabulous rain, taking that chore off our hands and providing a day of indoor retreat instead.

It’s a delightful day of inside pleasure.  The canning, pickling and jam making is on the list.  Pies, muffins, breads and cookies all come to mind.    It’s a wonderful day of baking and cooking, sewing and playing board games.  Inside goodness awaits us, while the rain falls and takes the stifling heat from the air, bringing cooler weather for different activities.  Run like the wind, cycle the roads and trails, the cool will only last for a few days, before the summertime heat sends us back to the beach to play.

Meanwhile, the house fills with the smells of fresh baked pies.  These rainy days are filled with blessings.  No more need to run to the beach to catch that last swim in the lake before dark.  Today is the rainy day of thunderstorm pleasure, when we reach for the recipe books and head to the larder.  These are the fabulous days, when there’s no place like home.

The berry patch has been abundant this year and the freezer has been filling with a variety of garden choices.  The delectable treats oozing with goodness, waiting to be consumed.  The baking tins come out of hiding, being prepared for the best of the best in garden baking.  Raspberry, white chocolate comes to mind.  These are the days of the happy chef and the smiling participants in the joy of cooking.  Lovely. It’s always clever to keep a supply of garden goodness for those rainy days.

Stinging Nettle Cake – Skovkær (nordicforestfoods.com)

Let it pour.  Let the rains come down in buckets.  Let the Earth take care of the watering and let the plants soak up the goodness of the water.  Let it rain, so that puddles form and the water splashes on our rain boots.  The thunder rolls in, lightning lights up the sky.  The heavens display a crackling of light and sound.  There’s an awesome display of power in thunder and lightning that sends a communication of awe in the uncontrolled weather.  Dark clouds billowing, rain descending.

🔴 Heavy Rain and Thunder Sounds 24/7 – Deep Sleep | Thunderstorm for Sleeping – Pure Relaxing Vibes – YouTube

Lucky are we to have a fine shelter, with garden delights to occupy our days.  There’s so much indoor goodness to attend to.  These chores are not chores.  These are a special gift of time.  A time when being forced to flee the inclement weather is a fine gift of welcome time.  Time to spend on the pantry.  Tine to fill up the cookie jar and prepare the fine feast.  Time to sew that garment and make gifts for our friends and loved ones.

That welcome storm.  The Earth needs the nutrients of the water and we need to rest and refresh ourselves.  Baking, sewing, spa.  It’s a rainy day.   A day for a treat.

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

August 20, 2023

Food! Glorious Food!

06 Sunday Sep 2020

Posted by in agriculture, alternative lifestyles, edible flowers, family farm, famine, farm, flowers, food, food production, fruit, gardening, gardens, health, homesteading, horticulture, lifestyle, recipes, starvation, the sustainability plan for food, Uncategorized, vegetables, world hunger

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Good Day, Brave hearts

The plentiful gifts from the planet are oozing with goodness for your health.  Baskets of ripe fruit, fresh, organic produce, berries and vegetables.  The farm.  That country lifestyle of wholesome goodness.  The peace, the quiet, the endless fields of  food.  Take out your recipe books, oh delectable gourmet, this is where your hunger ends and your imagination starts.

The variety of carrots, yellow, purple, orange.  The variety of potatoes, peas, beans and corn.  Grains for baking, soups and bread.  This is your gourmet delight.  The fabulous farm, or even your own slice of garden in your own back yard.  The wholesome goodness of fresh country produce, organically grown.  Your own little world of a vegetable garden, saves dollars at the grocery store, but also has more nutritional value.  Fresh picked tastes better and has a higher nutritional value than produce that has been picked earlier and trucked to stores.

Your larder is overflowing as the berry bushes bow, heavy laden with fruit.  It’s a bumper crop this year, early springtime sunshine and hot, dry weather followed by day after day of rain and  now a non stop supply of early ripening produce.  The canning and processing is in full production and this is early for us.  The summertime fruit cordials are a delicious addition to the pantry.  Pin cherry, black currant, red currant and rhubarb.  The freezer is filling and the bushes are overflowing.   The fruit trees are ripening and the vegetable garden is ready for picking. The great Canadian summer is with us with all of the goodness that if brings.

www/thesustainabilityplanforfood.com

The glorious days of summer!  Dreamy days of endless health.  The wild lands burst with blue bushes of berries, tiny ground growing red and higher crops of ripening purple.  Look up!  Is that berries in those trees?  The birds fill their bellies and the wandering bears lick the bushes clean.  A plentiful crop for the wildlife brings healthy newborns next spring. The forest floor is still a bit dry, but the thundershowers keep blowing in and soon the underbrush will be damp from the persistent rain.  Rain and warmth, sunshine and heat, longer days and warmer nights.  This year has worked it’s magic for us, with our backyard gardens filling our baskets with non stop fruit.  The daily toil, for backyard farmers like us, is the constant delight of filling our bowls with fruit or vegies and trying new recipes. This year it’s fruit cordials, which are an absolute delight.  Elixers and liqueurs, jams and pie.  The fabulous luxury of home grown and homemade.  A superb combination to fill the spare time hours of long summer days.

The wild brings its own delight.  Blueberries for your healthy basket.  Eat and enjoy, this summer won’t last.

Written by Dr. Louise Hayes

August 15, 2016